Splintered Timestream
by the bonesinger of yme-loc
Summary: Occasional narrative or grimoire styled re-examinations of Destiny 2, in the context of 'what could have been' had the game not forgotten everything that happened in the previous title. Beginning with Taeko not trying to rescue the frigging slayer of Oryx Loosely based around my Titan and her compatriots


_'Rescue me? No, I'm coming to rescue you.'_

The titan considers that for moment while her left knee takes up residence inside of a Hive Knight's plastron. She rides it to the floor, her momentum toppling it under her. Claws skitter and screech across plasteel, searching, hungry for a seam. A single fist, flaring with heat and light punches through it's face, detonating the ossified carapace into ash and fragments. The claws fall away: a marionette unstrung.

There's a brief smell of ozone and sulfur, even through the filters of her helmet, before flames explode around her. A dozen Acolytes are conjuring and flinging their grenades with an intensity that was just outside 'frantic'.

'Fire? _Fire?_ ' She clenches a hand and the flames suction out of the world, funneled and forged into a single point, bursting with potential. There's a hammer in that fist, crackling with intent, licking at the edges of the air. Fingers clench around it, metal creaking. 'Okay. I can do fire.'

It's almost trivial, the lazy toss that sends the hammer spinning, end over end, toward the knot of Hive. They scatter, of course, going to ground behind ancient planters and retaining walls for this once-was would-be garden. With a pull of Light it explodes, splashing gelid flame in a burst. Acolytes wither and vanish in the deluge; there's a sound like bones snapping and high-pitched whistles of whatever might pass for agony in their twisted bodies.

It's a nice tune.

She's still brimming with energy, breath hot in the confines of her helmet, but she tamps it down, bites it back. No sense wasting it all here.

 _'What was that? I didn't make it out.'_

'I said,' she paused, elbowing a thrall aside with a gesture that folded it in half and left it a wreckage of twisted limbs. Ahead of her, Caerid-9 wrapped both hands around a Wizard's head. She glanced away, squinting her eyes just as thunder kicked her in the chest and white-hot light picked out the world in startling contrast. Another acolyte tumbled past, shocked boneless by the release. 'I said, stay where you are. Let us come to you.'

 _'What? No, no, I'm not going to let any other guardians die down here.'_

'Who said anything about dying?' Caerid replies this time, and she could hear the amusement in his voice, even over the howling shriekers.

 _'There's too many Hive!'_

'Too many? Serra, is this too many?'

The crackling point of void light is violent and unstable - snapping at her fingers and the floor, arcing and earthing to bore holes around it. Everywhere but the sculpted chitin of the Hive altar. She scoops it up with one hand, tossing it up and catching it. It sets hairs on end up both arms, and paints the back of her tongue with iron. She takes in the Hive before her: Knights, Acolytes, two looming shriekers.

'This doesn't _look_ like too many Hive. The Abyss - what about that?' The shriekers howl and howl, spraying out hungering mouths in violet hue, little snippets of the Dark wrapped up in the void. A half dozen crackle against her shields, gnawing at the barrier but she bulls past them.

'The Abyss.' Caerid hums in theatrical thought, and she hears more thunder behind her. 'No, I think I'd call the Abyss 'just enough Hive'. This is - this is an _inconvenience_ of Hive.'

The oscillating, baleful mass in her hands is drawn toward the second altar - the anchor of both shriekers. It howls for it; it wails to be rejoined and it feels like gravity is shifting, tugging her that way too. She's more than willing to oblige. A pulse of jets from her boot marries with an impulse of Light and she's airborne, brushing past a knight even as it tries to grab for her trailing foot. The void orb is sucked home with a longing sigh, ripping itself out of her hands. Both shriekers implode with claps of displaced air, the bone scaffolds of both clattering to the floor. One bounces off her shoulder, immobile.

'What Caerid is saying, Taeko, is we can handle this. Stay where you are.'

The hunter's voice is rising in volume and pitch, panic gnawing at the edges, flavoring the words.

 _'No one can handle this! I have to get to you, I can't lose you too-'_

'Listen to me. Listen to me!' A fraction of a second behind it's burbling bellow an ogre hauls itself out of the swampy mush of the overgrown oasis, adding yet another appetizing attraction to the wonders of New Pacific Arcology. Serra doesn't miss a stride, hand rising to the hilt over one shoulder and yanking Raze-Lighter free, already dashing toward the Hive. Flames boil up from the crystal just above the guard as she feeds her Light into it. She heard Caerid shout as he erupts into a conduit of Arc: she can't see it, but the crackle of electricity and the detonation of carapaced bodies is unmistakable.

' _We can handle this._ You know Crota?' A fist, bulked with cancerous masses and bulging muscle sweeps at her, and she drops to her knees, skidding on the wet cement. Another pulse of jets from her boots boosts her along before lifting her back to her feet as the ogre unbalances, stumbling forward. It's expansive back is exposed, bursting with knobs of bone and enormous weeping sockets.

'Oryx?' Raze-Lighter makes itself a sheath in the centre of the wall of flesh, a cloud of vaporized meat and steam exploding around the hilt as it sinks in. The ogre goes wild, flailing and stumbling, and she wraps both hands around the hilt, clambering up onto the Hive as it rampages. Caerid blinks above it, sending arcs of lightning to earth into it's face. All two tons of the monster dances and twitches, sparks crackling down it's muscles.

'After those two, you could say Hive are our specialty.' Another wave of Light through the sword, pushing out a bloom of Solar Light and the Ogre explodes into chunks of meat, charred and ruptured from the inside out. Caerid drifts down next to her and for a moment there's silence.

Well.

Aside from the popping and hissing of the light drizzle of rain on the superheated chunks around them.

'You got ogre on me.' Caerid observes, before sparks flicker and lick across his entire body, crisping the gobbets into thin, acrid smoke. Her boots are caked in congealed ichors and ash along with both gauntlets past the elbow. The proper way a Titan ought look.

' _Wait. Wait.'_ There's surprise overriding the panic in Taeko's voice. Maybe a little awe.

 _'You're the slayer of Oryx?'_

'In the flesh. And the circuits. So hang tight, Taeko. Hunker down. We've got you.'

 _'Okay. Okay. I can do that. Just...hurry.'_


End file.
